


Red Water

by kataracy, Riversider (kataracy)



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-01-30 14:54:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12655743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kataracy/pseuds/kataracy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/kataracy/pseuds/Riversider
Summary: Failing to save his people, a young airbender named Aang awakens in a whole new world after making a pact with the Avatar Spirit, and he's changed. His skin is ice cold, his heart is stilled, he aches all over.Found by a young Oracle named Katara and her brother Sokka who free him from his frozen state, Aang notices a hunger awakening inside of him that he'd never felt before, and all because of the way the Oracle Katara arches her neck just... so...A dark romance between a young man craving redemption and the girl who can see it happening.





	1. Prologue Pt.1

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't see a Vampire Aang or Vampire AUs laying around anywhere so I had to make one myself *clap emoji clap emoji*

  Today, the sky was devoid of color. 

Nothing but murky, dark clouds slid jumbled up together like mud. The air was heavy, almost _stiff_ , and it surrounded friend and foe just as such; soldiers and monks battled, fire sizzled against fanning flames and it was back to  _this_ reality terrified yells pierced the Avatar’s unconscious state, bringing him back to the world burning around him.

Immediately, he noticed fire eating away at his pants and quickly sat up to snuff it out, only for his sudden movement to turn his head and stomach into mimics of the fighting around him, the dizzying nausea not at all enough to drown out the noise.

“Avatar Aang!”

“Where is he!?”

“Avatar Aang? Avatar Aang!!”

Aang blearily took in his surroundings; he was on a nearby shore, the hot sand crunching in his fists, with eyes so dry they felt like they were scratching his corneas. Sitting up to kneel in the sandy bank of the temple beach he could only recall being knocked clear off cliff-side by his enemy. It was That Man’s simple yet, cruel tactic. His people were frightened by what they couldn’t see and right now, they couldn’t see their only hope.

But they could see death, they could see destruction. They were up there, fighting his fight and getting slaughtered.

Aang’s body tensed as oncoming chunks of bile rose to the back of his throat. His thoughts, he could remember… they had been scaring him, and they were selfishly resurfacing, 

 ' _I can’t… I don’t want t-to…’_

Explosions accompanied screams in time with Aang hunching over to expel the burning bile in his chest.

  _'I don’t want to die…’_

From above, his opponent smiled in sick glee before jetting down with a flourish of fire, scorching the sand with his descent. 

“I have to say,” He began, not a note of fatigue in his voice, “when my men said they’d blown you clean off the side, this is _exactly_ what I’d hoped to see.” 

Aang felt like a caged animal ready to pounce; hunched over, the burn in his chest was almost being fueled by anger and poured into his chakras.

“I get it, OK?” Aang yelled, “You’re stronger than the Avatar! You’ve made your point!” 

“Have I?” He smiled so, so languidly. Never before had Aang wished harm upon an elder, upon anyone, more.

“Please–they don’t deserve to die–”

“So you are saying that you do? You wish for me to spare them then that _you_ become a martyr?” 

“No _I_ –!” 

“Because that, you see, just would not do, ” His enemy shot his arms downward, producing daggers of fire, “If I let them live they would eventually revolt. It’s the peaceful ones you have to watch out for the most you know.” 

“Let them?” Aang stood with his head bowed, “It’s got nothing to do with what you’ll let them do… life deserves to be lived…” The tattoos along his body, the symbol of his people, a pathway of arrows pointing at each end of his limbs, began glowing, “Who are you to dec **ide whether an entire race lives or dies?”**

“…By the look on your face Avatar Aang,” He smirked, “I could ask you the same question.” 

His enemy looked like the human embodiment of a dragon who had just dined on appetizers and was about to indulge in the real feast. Aang’s eyes glowed a ghostly white, with tinges of red rimming them. 

**“Sozin.”** His voice melded into an echo, **“I’ll stop you.”**

Sozin’s eyes widened with excitement and he leaned forward, fire lighting his heels as he prepared to charge, “I’ll enjoy seeing you try!”

* * *

As Aang was thrown across the beach, into the ocean, Sozin’s laughter followed him. His body bounced against the water so many times as he tried to grab the air itself for leverage, before smacking the side of a large stone, and he finally plummeted into the tempestuous ink, conscious enough to feel every wound burn and feel the crack of his ankle and it had him relinquishing bubbles of air as he screamed, mixing the red of his blood with the black of the tide horribly.

Above, the clouds had spread to an burning orange sky red that was muted by billowing smoke Aang couldn’t help imagining between the smoke, floated the ashes of his people.

His poor people, who had been ill-fortunate enough to put seeds of faith in a fourteen year old kid and hope it bore fruit…

Aang’s fingers twitched. Though he couldn’t reach up, he pretended he was still fighting to touch the surface. 

His angered expression relaxed but he squeezed his eyes shut, his teeth unclenched but, he bit his lips together; the fight was leaking out of him and yet, how _badly_ he didn’t want it to.

Flashes of light appeared on either side of him, giving form to two, large spirits, a white one to his left and a black one his right, floating down with him and donning appearances of childish but elaborate paper kites.

 _ **“That’s two that foe has beaten.”**_ The black spirit hissed, stretching their aching feelers, _**“This 'losing’ thing certainly clogs my chakras.”**_

 _ **“It is okay Aang.”**_ The white spirit prompted, ignoring their other half, _**“The battle was lost but the war rages on. You will be reborn.”**_

Their spirit glowed, ready to guide Aang’s soul forward into their ghostly blue light, while Aang continued staring at the water surface… and that blurry, burning sky.

 _’…I don’t want to die.’_

_**“Hush Aang,”**_ The white spirit curled around his unresponsive arm, placating.

 _ **“Now, now Raava,”**_ The black spirit wrapped his own feeler around Aang’s contorted ankle, if nothing else, their strong intrigue instantly healing it, **“** _ **His soul desires are making themselves known. Are you no longer interested in last requests?**_ ”

 ** _“Stop it, Vaatu.”_** The white spirit, Raava, warned as Vaatu began to glow red. 

  **"** ** _You think too highly of me, Darling. It is not just_ I _who is interested in this one living a bit longer.”_**

Aang slowly looked to Vaatu and, had Vaatu had any facial expression to give, would have certainly had eyes sparkling in fascination. 

  _ **“Seems the boy has chosen.”**_

Though Raava had no face, no expression to express, Vaatu had been around long enough to notice the displeased curl of those blue feelers any lifetime. 

_**“We shall speak soon, Vaatu.”** _

_**“I look forward to it, My Dear.”** _

While Raava disappeared, Vaatu floated above Aang, stealing the sky as if to replace it with his own form. 

_**“As far as not dying goes, I’m sorry.”**_ Vaatu sounded anything but, **_“You will die. My saving grace, however, is instead of being reborn, you will be… unborn.”_**  
Vaatu reached out to him, and Aang found the last bit of strength he had in him to extend his hand.

_**“Where Raava only sees trial and error, I see potential for greatness.”** _

Aang vaguely thought that sounded like Vaatu’s version of a calming chant. He blinked slowly, and slower still. until his eyes would only remain closed.

Vaatu glowed, their form grew, bending water and wind around Aang in a sphere before disappearing inside of him, and awakening him as the Avatar for what would be the last time for a long time. Aang’s body animated itself into bending forms, pulling the currents around itself before positioning into a meditative sit as his time froze. 

 

**_“Little Savior, you were simply born one hundred years too early…”_ **


	2. Cliffside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brother and sister duo climb through ruins to reach a cliff the sister saw in her dream. A spirit remembers to defrost something.

  Today, the sky was a blue marble. While wispy clouds skimmed lazily across, a loud lemur circled excitedly above black girl standing cliffside.

She took the deep breath of air that blew through her braid and released it with a loud, nonsensical hum, one that signified the happiness in living in the mome--

"Kataraaaaa! Are we there yet!?"

Katara grimaced as her loudmouth brother finally pushed himself out of the ruins.

"Ask louder Sokka, I don't think the fish heard you!" She bellowed back, craning her neck for her lemur to wrap around her shoulders and begin his chattering.

"Is he telling you were the gold is?" Sokka sarcastically quipped, dumping his supply bag down with a relieved sigh. Katara waved at him to hush as she tried scrapping together what little she could of the chittering.

"He's telling us to wait, until…? Nightfall? No, no, waterfalls?"

"What, like rain? You said your vision had a clear sky in it."

"It did." Katara let her fingers rest on her in chin and began trying to decipher this.

For the past month, her prophetic dreams had been going crazy with specific imagery: a clear sky, the Air Temple ruins, flashes of orange, and flying, blue arrows. Along with Sokka and Little Guy, Katara had set off immediately to the journey, for Oracles, especially traveling Oracles, were taught to immediately follow their dreams and consistently listen to their instincts.

Well, Katara was taught that, being the Oracle of the family. Sokka was a Hunter and, her self-proclaimed protecter. They went where Katara's dreams dictated and lived off of the earnings of collected bounties, sometimes finding nice places with soft beds, other times finding dry caves.

They survived a hectic time by satisfying the adventure Katara craved and the peaceful downtime Sokka coveted.

After almost a month of travel, they had finally made it to the site of Katara's newest premonitions and it seemed it was only to receive new information from Little Guy, named thusly because Katara was bad at naming things.

"Guess we'll just have to wait here." She said, giving an apologetically shrug to Sokka who waved off.

"No complaints here, my feet are killing me." Plopping down, Sokka began rummaged through his pack for his waterskin and pan. His tongue poked out slightly as he wiggled his toes out of his boots, Sokka set the pan down and poured out some water.

"Don't suppose you're in the mood to heat the water up for me?" Sokka baited, knowing his sister always loved a chance to showcase a new trick.

"I _guess_ I can take pity on-" Katara grew stiff in an instant.

"Katara?"

Her attention snapped back to the cliffside, where the water churned fast below until creating a spiral, one that moved from underneath the cliff and grew the father away it got.

Katara removed her travel pack and slipped out of her boots, Little Guy leapt from her shoulders to fly overhead.

"Katara..." Sokka spoke in a tone halfway between warning her to stop and preparing for whatever she was about to do.

Katara's instincts told her to jump.

So she listened.

* * *

Aang didn't vividly recall what being frozen the same way he did being thawed out.

**THUMP… thump** ; Slow bumps of his heart pumped the first sensation, a slow building headache.

Followed by a fog of confusion for where anything was; he couldn't tell what was up or down, near or far.

**THUMP... thump** ; the beat rapped on the door of his soul, stirring a grumpy black mass out of its lump

' _ **What is all of the noise**?_  ' Vaatu asked and got an aggressive **THUMP** of a response.

For a host that had been unresponsive for a hundred years, it certainly made more noise than ever before at the mere approach of a spritually inclined human, and at the very moment Vaatu's dream had been getting good.

Aang's heart beat heavily and unnaturally slowly, still,

' _ **Still**._ ' Vaatu thought as he writhed, his form swelling and eclipsing over his heart. ' ** _Stop that, lest this entire endeavor instantly be for naught.'_**

Still, it was the fastest Aang's heart had beat in one hundred years.

A sudden urge, almost an inherent panic shivered up Aang's body, arguing against muscles stiff as planks for movement. His eyes had been closed for so long but even the twitching of his eyelids were exhausting.

Registering the numbness included the pain, and _oh Spirits_ how it caught every nerve while crawling along his entire body.

Vaatu, moved with the thumps and spilled into his heart, bleeding into his veins and coloring them black. Then, from Aang's chest Vaatu blossomed, skin that had been as white Raava was poured over with black, and where battle worn threads were frosted over his blue arrows, Vaatu encased in his own black and orange patterns.

_' **A hundres years is such a short break. Are you ready to be the Avatar**?'_

Aang began shivering.

Laden firebending reacted to speed up his natural heating process.

The ice sweltered around his fingers and toes, melting the sticky patch of urine that had frozen to his inner thighs, rubbing off the congealed blood around his scabs in a flaky crust. Air bubbles began to leak from his mouth and nose.

His teeth began gnashing together.

* * *

After minutes of pushing through churning waves, Katara finally decided to come up. Little Guy's shadow flew overhead and around the spiral, that only Katara's arcane focus kept her from getting swept inside of.

Then, the water became tumultous, typhooning and her own scream snapped Katara out of her own grip.

Her body moved on it's own, pushing her hand out in front of her to shove herself backwards in the now outraged sea and caught herself on one of the few stones jutting out of the waters in time to see the majesty of a giant iceberg unsubmerge itself.

Her heart pounded loudly in her ears.

"Katara!" Sokka yelled, stressing the vowels and Katara looked up to see him perched on the side of the cliff he'd begun scaling down.

"Sokka!" She responded in surprise, then moved an ocean current towards him and used it to wrap around his midsection and deposit him on the large boulder next to her.

"So, wild guess, we're here for that." Sokka gestured flippantly.

From afar, Katara could see the berg slowed its bobbing and… started swelling.

As if breathing.

As if living. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a sudden bout of editing inspiration and hopefully that'll keep steady into writing inspiration.

**Author's Note:**

> Does the spacing look weird to anyone else or is that just me...


End file.
